AGY-5153 | Premier's Office [I]

Full description

Although Edward Burns Harkness was appointed as a Special Clerk to the Premier on 17 October 1902 (1) it was not until 1907 that a more comprehensive special staff for the Premier was first established as the Premier’s Office within the Department of the Attorney-General and of Justice.(2) Prior to this, premiers traditionally used the portfolio of Colonial Secretary or Colonial Treasurer as their “locus of administrative support”.(3) With the establishment of the Premier’s Office, the policy co-ordination role of the Chief Secretary’s Department declined.(4) After the election of 1907, Charles Wade was the senior minister of the Government with the official title of Attorney-General. From federation, the senior minister was unofficially known as the premier but officially known by their ministerial title.(5)

The Premier’s Office remained a branch of the Department of Attorney-General and of Justice until the establishment of a separate Premier’s Department in the 1908-09 financial year. During this time, the Under-Secretary of the Department of Attorney-General and of Justice was also the Under-Secretary of the Premier’s Office. Between 1907 and 1914, the Under Secretary of the Ministerial Department in which the Premier was located, also acted as Under Secretary of the Premier's Office/Department.(6)

James Leslie Williams was appointed Under-Secretary for the Premier’s Office on 2 October 1907.(7) As indicated above, Williams was also Under Secretary for the Department of Attorney-General and of Justice. Although the following staff were appointed to the Premier’s Office in 1907 and 1908, their appointments do not appear to have been officially gazetted until 12 August 1908: Edward Burns Harkness, Special Clerk to the Premier was appointed Chief Clerk from 1 December 1907, Clifford Henderson Hay and Edward Hugh Palmer who were Clerks of the Treasury were appointed Clerks in the Premier’s Office from 1 December 1907, and William Kenneth Charlton, a Junior Clerk in the Department of Prisons was appointed a Junior Clerk in the Premier’s Department from 1 July 1908.(8)

A Premier’s Office was part of the Premier’s Department from its first year of operation in the 1908-09 financial year.


ENDNOTES
1. NSW Public Service Lists (Blue Books) 1908, p42.
2. History of Premier’s Department, author unknown, undated typescript held in State Records’ staff reference collection, 354.944 HIS, p4; NSW Public Service Lists 1908, p42.
3. Tyler, Peter, Humble and Obedient Servants: The Administration of New South Wales Volume 2, 1901-1960, University of New South Wales Press, 2006, p17.
4. ibid., p27.
5. NSW Public Service Lists (Blue Books) 1908, Attorney General and Justice p42.
6. NSW Public Service Lists, 1907-1914.
7. NSW Public Service Lists, 1909.
8. NSW Government Gazette No.98, 12 August 1908, p.4547.